LEAVING RACHEL’S office, Jack headed back to the Fairfax Hotel, where he met with the manager and got a tour of the place. Everything was as he’d expected it to be, and more. He called Tom, gave him some specifics, and told him to start working up a bid. Then he dropped the news that he wouldn’t be back to the work site for a couple of days. Tom had gone a little nuts over that, but this trip wasn’t negotiable. Business would keep.
Rachel wouldn’t.
He certainly hadn’t planned for things to go the way they had today, and he could hardly believe his luck. A four-day retreat? Sharing a room? And Rachel had to pretend he was her husband?
Did it get any better than that?
Okay. She clearly didn’t want him around. Or she thought she didn’t, anyway. But now he had four days to convince her otherwise. To put her into the same kind of atmosphere they’d experienced in San Antonio and see what might happen between them. If he could bring back just a glimmer of the connection he’d felt with her, it would all be worth it.
At the Fairfax, he begged for the use of a computer from the hotel manager’s secretary. He researched the Web sites of humanitarian groups who flew to other countries to offer medical assistance, committing buzz words to memory that he could use if necessary. Rachel would undoubtedly fill him in on information concerning what she’d told the people she worked with. Then he’d mesh the two together and come up with a profile he could use so he wouldn’t get tripped up. Even without the preparation, though, he wouldn’t have anticipated any problems in that regard.
After spending his entire childhood as the son of a petroleum engineer who was transferred every year or two, Jack had lived all over the United States and in several foreign countries. He’d been forced to give up friends, then turn right around and make new ones so many times that he’d become a master of the game.
At first it had been painful. Then he discovered the secret. If he made the other kids laugh, pretty soon he had them eating out of his hand. Life could be pretty dull, and the person who spiced things up was the person who had a list of friends as long as his arm. He sometimes felt that he could parachute into anyplace on the planet, and within two days he could have a party and invite twenty people who’d be happy to come. Consequently, he’d never met a situation in his life that he couldn’t talk himself into or out of, and this one would be no different.
After he finished his research, he went by a couple of downtown stores and picked up a few things. Ski equipment he could rent at the resort, but he needed enough clothes and other items to last him four days. He hadn’t planned on going on a buying spree, but as an independently wealthy doctor, shouldn’t he really look his best?
Then, at the appointed hour, he returned to Rachel’s office. Her attitude toward him hadn’t changed a bit. In fact, she acted so coldly toward him as they drove to her condominium that he wouldn’t have been surprised to see icicles forming on the inside of her car. Once they got there, she parked her car, strode inside and didn’t even bother to look back to see if he was following her or not. Jack just smiled. She couldn’t hold out forever. Sooner or later, the sweet, congenial, sexually insatiable woman he’d known in San Antonio would rise to the surface, and when she did, he’d be waiting.
Then he went inside her condo, and he wondered if maybe locating her wild side again would be a taller task than he’d imagined.
Her decor consisted of off-white carpet and off-white walls. Generic art that matched the drapes that matched the sofa that matched the chairs. Not a speck of dust anywhere or a statuette out of place. Dreary traditional furniture that looked as if nobody had ever sat on it. Her home looked like a place where a person twice her age might live—a person twice her age with a desire to freeze the pants off anyone who stepped foot inside it. It reminded him of the decor he’d seen at her office today—modern, efficient, practical, heartless. If he’d found just one cracked wall, a mismatched pillow, or even a family picture or two, he might have been able to feel comfortable.
No chance of that.
Did the same woman live here whom he’d shared the room with in the historic San Antonio hotel? The one with the leaky clawfoot tub and the four-poster bed? The one with the cracks in the walls? The one she said she loved the very smell of?
Impossible.
Rachel hung her coat in the front closet, then did the same with his.
“Have you eaten?” she asked him.
“No, but I’d be happy to take you out.”
She gave him a yeah, I’ll just bet you would look, then strode toward the kitchen. “I’ll order something.”
“Order?”
“I don’t cook. Not very often, anyway.”
“Then what do you eat?”
“Yogurt and granola for breakfast. A salad for lunch. Anything ready to microwave for dinner. Low fat, low cal.”
“How about a pizza?” he asked.
She winced. “I guess one without meat would be okay.”
“I was thinking pepperoni.”
Her lip curled, clearly showing her distaste. “Do you ever think of your arteries?”
“As little as possible.”
“I don’t blame you. They’re probably a real mess.”
“If you’ll remember, we ordered room service in San Antonio.”
She looked away. “So?”
“Steak and potatoes. Chocolate cheesecake for dessert. Extra whipped cream. In fact, as I remember, we talked the room service waiter into bringing us an entire can of whipped cream.” He grinned. “Amazing what you can do with one of those, isn’t it?”
Her cheeks flamed red all over again. She started to say something, then clamped her mouth shut, probably figuring that denial was pointless since she was the one who’d emptied most of the can.
She pulled open a kitchen drawer and grabbed a coupon. “Go ahead. Order pepperoni. Extra cheese. Stuffed crust. And why don’t you get a bunch of those bread sticks while you’re at it? The ones that you dip in garlic butter? That ought to really send the old cholesterol through the roof.”
He smiled. “Now you’re talking.”
She rolled her eyes with disgust. Slapping the coupon on the counter, she went into her bedroom and closed the door behind her. Jack sighed and shook his head. He knew at heart she was a pepperoni pizza eater, but now was not the time to push the issue. He grabbed the phone, dialed the number of the pizza place and ordered a vegetarian supreme.
By the time the pizza got there and they ate, it was approaching eight o’clock. No matter how often he tried to start a conversation, Rachel rebuffed him at every turn. If she couldn’t stop him from coming to the resort with her, she clearly intended to make their time together as unpleasant as she possibly could. That was okay. He wasn’t blessed with an excess of virtues, but patience was one he had in spades.
After they finished eating, Rachel sent him to the living room, then cleaned up the kitchen. She then disappeared down the hall, brought back sheets, blankets and a pillow and lay them on the sofa.
